M2K Zombies
by Marvel2000Fanfic
Summary: An original take on the fan-favorite Marvel Zombies series. Make sure to visit our site for prior issues and other great series!


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 **Marvel Zombies #7- 28 Days Later**

 **Written by Anthony Crute**

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Kurt Wagner huddled silently in the darkness of the uppermost corner of the corridor, all but invisible to any prying eyes. This was a position that he had grown accustomed to, however it was not one he liked. He was supposed to be the swashbuckling, highflying, star attraction at some world famous circus or Vegas show. Yet, he knew that God worked in mysterious ways.

He silently watched the figures shuffling down the corridor towards him. There were only three of them this time. He waited as they approached watching silently from his position. The stench of their rotting flesh filled the enclosed space.

Nightcrawler waited until the three had shuffled past before dropping to the floor silently behind them, and with one swift movement, unsheathed his sword and rose turning sharply. The blades sliced through the flesh in their necks and severed their spinal cords like a hot knife through butter. Their bodies fell with a wet thump to the floor, black blood pumping from their necks.

Kurt leapt once more to the ceiling, pausing only for a moment before carrying on his way. This had been the way of things for Kurt for the past few weeks. Searching each day for the zombies which were now over running the base and trying to find the pockets of survivors which were dotted throughout the base.

The next corner led him to a pile of rubble that blocked the path. These destroyed sections were all over the base caused by small explosions, which seriously hamper any of the superheroes movements around the base. All except Nightcrawler that is.

He appeared with a * _Bamf*_ on the other side of the rubble to a yelp of shock from some of the refugees beyond the destruction. He also found a large gun pointed at his head. "I wish you wouldn't do that, zombies cannot teleport mein freundin." He took the satchel from around his neck and threw it to some of the refugees who were huddling in the corner.

"No," Misty said as she eyed him in the low light trying to make out his features effectively. Just before the base went on total lockdown they had just discovered that certain individuals like Crystal the Inhuman princess and his fellow X-Man Kitty Pryde maintained their powers and change their personality drastically when infected. "But zombie Nightcrawler could." He understood and nodded.

Kurt looked at the huddled and starving refugees. There were about 20 locked into this small section of tunnel and 4 rooms (one of which had been converted into being a toilet because it had a closable door, though that did nothing for the smell). If only they had believed Colossus all of this could have been averted.

 _28 days earlier…_

Luke Cage had just begun to nibble on the ear of his lover, biting gently at first but then getting tougher. She was just about to vocalise her discomfort when another stimulus became more pressing as the wall to their room exploded inwards.

Rubble crashed across their bodies, she felt the blunt force of several parts before Luke moved his body to protect her and let the rubble bounce off his impenetrable skin. No sooner had the rubble stopped moving than he took a step back and turned. He had more pressing matters than checking on her.

Luke was face to chest with the shiny metal form of Colossus. Luke Cage was no small man, being over six feet tall, but the X-Man towered over him. He was glancing around the room barely paying attention to Cage. That changed.

Luke slammed his forearm across Colossus' jaw and followed it through with his full body weight driving the X-Man backwards into the wall which shook and released more rubble. "What the hell you doing, tin man," growled Cage. He grabbed Colossus' face and twisted it sideways to look at the destruction he had caused. Through the hole in the wall it was clear that he had ploughed through at least four separate quarters and left a number of minor injuries in his path.

Colossus forced his head back around and began to push back on Cage. "Katya! Where are you!?" he yelled as he put more pressure onto the smaller hero. Luke slammed him backwards again with another strong elbow across the side of his head. He used his leg to push against Colossus' damaged one and gain more leverage. A move which he had learned from his deceased friend Iron Fist.

A number of other figures began to fill the room now through the hole in the wall. First into the breach was the dinosaur Old Lace, who began to circle the two, growling. The daughters of the dragon were next, weapons in hand. "Back off now!" Misty Knight commanded while she and Colleen Wing, without a word, took positions to flank both men. Next came Nightcrawler and Wolfsbane who bounded through the hole.

"Piotr! Piotr!" barked Nightcrawler before leaping into the small space between the two struggling men. His feet pressed against the chest of Colossus whilst he held onto his shoulders. He looked directly into his eyes. "We need to calm down, _Mein freund_. Deep breaths."

Colossus stopped struggling as he stared into the face of his friend. "I saw Katya, she is here….she is like them."

Nightcrawler blinked slowly and pressed his forehead against Colossus. "Piotr," he sighed heavily "Kätzchen is dead. She was _schön_ and we all loved her, she was the love of your life, I know. I am sorry, but she died; you were there."

"I know, but I was also there today when Crystal came back. Katya has done the same, she came from within me." Colossus banged on his chest causing a reverberating noise to echo around. Other heroes like Hank Pym and Tony Stark had arrived in the meantime and, going against type, stood by quietly watching the scene. They were listening intently.

" _Mein Freund_ , I fear today has been stressful for all of us. We found this safe haven and had our views of this _Gott-_ forsaken plague changed. I think you were dreaming…a nightmare."

Colossus sagged where he stood. "It seemed so real, everything about it was like it was really happening." His body stiffened again and he stood to face those in the room. "I am sorry for all of this. I will understand if you wish me to leave."

"There's no need for that," Pym cut in before anyone else could speak. He noticed Luke shooting him an unhappy look. "These are tough times…I think it would be best if we attended to the injured. Moved some people around and got a good night sleep." Several of the others nodded uneasily.

"Venom, get away from them!" barked Stark as he turned to see the black symbiote sniffing at some of the injured people.

The people began to filter away from the action as they were ushered out. Colossus and Nightcrawler apologised again for what was occurring and then the base got quiet.

It was the next morning when one of the residents of the base was reported missing. That evening he bit into another who was taking some time to himself in one of the other corners of the base. The power went out in the middle of the night after they had begun to search the base, it had remained that way since.

 _28 days later…_

"How's it looking out there?" Colleen asked as she stepped out from the small group of refugees. She was holding a child in her arms. He was gaunt and pasty looking, slowly starving.

"I just killed three more," Kurt nodded. "I still don't know how many have been changed. Many are still missing and we don't have the faintest idea where they are."

"I still think I should tunnel my way through and get out there. We've got to do something before more of our people start dying," Misty flexed her mechanical arm to demonstrate exactly how it was she planned to do that.

" _Nein_ ," Kurt shook his head "Be strong, _Frauline_. Visibility is nil, corridors all over the base have been collapsed, doors sealed by Shadowcat and we need you to protect the others. She can come from any surface, remember."

"I'm damn well aware," Misty scanned her eyes around the edges of the room as best she could. Her eyes were as used to the darkness as they ever would be. Looking for her coming through some wall towards the refugees was becoming her main pastime. "What the hell did Stark say last time you saw him?"

"He is still working on the systems. Kätzchen can destroy any electrical systems she walks though…apparently she has taken a long stroll," Kurt sighed "I cannot apologise enough for her, she was my friend and we brought her here."

"You didn't know," Colleen cut in and placed her hand on his back.

"That said," Misty said, Colleen stiffened slightly. She was prepared for Misty to say something harsh; it played to type. "You tell Stark today that we're getting out of here tomorrow if they don't come up with a better idea. We talked and we'd rather take our chances out there then starve to death in here."

Kurt nodded slowly. "I have been thinking the same. _Auf Wiedersehen_!" With a _*Bamf*_ he was gone.

 _Outside…_

Hellion sat in mid-air levitating. He was cross-legged and rested his face on his hands. His body slowly turned in a semi-circle as he scanned the forest border for any signs of movement. The teens had been taking it in turns to do this for the past month.

" _Sure, we'll take the kids outside for some fresh air,"_ he mentally mirrored the voice of his girlfriend Wind Dancer in his head, replaying the scene in the base 28 days earlier. Here they were on the longest camping fieldtrip that anyone had ever taken.

He turned his head to look at Sofia. She was standing with the kids in a rough arc around her as she told them a story from Venezuala, and as usual, the children were raptured with her. She did the voices and everything. Julian supposed that things could be worse, he remembered, but would never admit the slight panic which had washed over him when the base went into lockdown when they were outside, but things hadn't really turned out so bad.

It was the summer so thankfully the temperature never dropped too low and they had a fire roaring most of the time in case there was a chill in the air. The teens themselves had coped very well, Sofia managed to keep the place dry by blowing rain clouds away from the base. They had made a makeshift shelter against one of the base walls for the kids to sleep in and between Chase, Old Lace, and himself they'd managed to keep everyone's stomachs full.

He stopped rotating as his eyes fixed on something breaking the treeline. The blonde teen and his genetically engineered dinosaur emerged from the woods carrying a huge chunk of meat. Deer, by the look of it from a distance. They had learned the hard way quickly that even hungry kids wouldn't eat the forest animals if Chase brought them back complete with fur and heads so the teen had become quite adept at skinning and gutting animals into a more user friendly appearance with his Fistigons.

"What up, player," said Chase as he drew inline with Hellion. Julian never knew if Chase was serious with these sort of outbursts or if he had a sense of sarcasm and irony running through them. He wasn't even sure if Chase knew what irony was.

"Nothing much. Clive fell over and skinned his knee…so that was fun," Julian smirked. Chase returned it. The boys had grown a lot closer over the past month. They were still liable to blow up at one another and launch into a snarkfest on a daily basis but it was obvious to everyone in the makeshift camp, even the youngest, that these two were fast becoming friends even if they did rub each other the wrong way. These contradictions were explained by the fact that these two were clearly too similar.

"I brought Bambi," Chase thumbed towards the carcasses which were lying across Old Lace's back. "Turns out Lace likes to eat Deer heads, which was disgusting." Chase wrinkled his nose, Old Lace hissed at his disparaging comments.

Chase rubbed Lace's head, and she opened her mouth and let her tongue loll out. The smell of deer brains wafted across Chase's face. "Any word from inside?" Chase asked. He could see that Sofia had finished up the story she was telling and was making her way over to the boys whilst the kids behind her fell into a state of play.

"No," Julian said with a shake of his head. It had been 3 days since Kurt had managed to have enough time to bamf out of the base to see the teens. The constant running around the base and dispatching lone zombies had really eaten into his time.

"So…" Chase cut himself off. He was about to ask if Julian thought they were the only ones left and all they were doing is guarding a bunker filled with zombies from other zombies.

Sofia approached the two with a muted smile. The three began to unload the meat from Old Lace who then immediately sprinted off to play with the children.

"Crazy to think that one of your teachers from 'Mutant High' is a weird ninja zombie who is trying to eat us, huh?" Chase said almost out of hand as he heaved a carcass onto his shoulder.

Julian stopped and looked at him. "This isn't our fault," said Julian sharply.

"That's not what I'm saying…just saying it's odd. She was up at your school teaching you how to protect people with your powers and now she's using hers to eat people….zombies."

"This isn't anything to do with powers. This isn't anything to do with us just because we're mutants," Julian barked.

"You think I blame you because you're mutants? I'm not even blaming you by the way. One of my best friends is, was, a mutant. I met Cloak and Dagger once too…are they mutants?"

"We don't know! Not all mutants know each other!"

Chase rolled his shoulders back and exhaled slowly, he had matured a lot in the past year or two thanks to his friends and the life they had set up. He could however still revert back to 'old Chase' given even the slightest provocation. "Stop making this about mutants! Why has everything got to do with the damn X gene in your world view. We're all just people! We were all just people before this and we're all damn well in the same boat now. It's Us Vs Them," he gestured towards the base. He didn't notice that the small group of kids had stopped playing and were now watching the audible argument. "All I was saying was it must be tough having someone you used to know…clearly even liked…killing people."

"You should know valley boy, what's it like having your parents tried to destroy the whole planet?" Julian hissed.

Chase stopped "You know about that?" Even though he had mostly moved past it emotionally and had never exactly had the 'waltons' dynamic going on with his parents. It still felt weird to let people know what his parents had done.

"Of course I know. A bunch of kids from a few high schools around the city…one of who is the daughter of an A-list couple stopped their parents from destroying the world. It gets around!"

Chase stood slack jawed for a second. "I've got no one left," he turned his head away. "All of my friends…my family are gone, even my parents, the crazy nutbags they were. It's all my fault." He turned back to look at the other two. "I'm the biggest douche in the world you know. I look at the way things are now and I know that everyone is the same…and I feel a little better. It's sick."

Sofia spoke now. "We are all in the same ship now," she nodded "none of us are alone. We all have each other…all people have to be family."

The teens stood in silence.

 _Connor & Pym's Lab…_

Kurt balanced on the edge of the workbench whilst Stark looked through the bag of equipment which he had brought. "No dammit, this is all crap", he threw the bag on the floor.

"SStark," said Connor with a shake of his head as he bent to pick up the bag. "Ssome of this must be useful."

"Not for what we need!" He barked. "How is it that the worlds' top engineer, who has jerry-rigged damn Kree space stations is trapped in a damn bunker built in the 1980s by the US military."

Tony was frustrated. Kurt could see it in his stance and hear it in his voice, almost like he was about to give up. Every time it looks like he was making some progress in getting the base systems back up and running Kitty moved through the system and broke the entire thing meaning he had to start again.

"I am sorry, I salvaged what I could based on your descriptions," Kurt nodded. He reached out and took the bag from Connors and began to carefully unpack it. "I will try again."

"Maybe we should take a different tack," said Connors as he rubbed his hand across his face. "Find a way to take out Shadowcat."

"You and Pym have been trying to come up with a way to take out the zombies for months and you're no further ahead. We don't even know where Hank and Venom are, if they're even still alive," Tony kicked a chair.

"We don't need to cure the zombies, just sstop Shadowcat from doing what she hass been doing," Kurt and Tony exchanged a concerned look with one another. It had become noticeable of the last couple of weeks that Curt was developing the speech impediment which characterised a change into the lizard coming. He was unable to synthesise any serum whilst the base was in the state it was in.

Tony stood for a moment and stroked his growing beard which now reached down to touch his chest. "Maybe we could…it would depend on a few things but I think using my armour and a few more pieces I could build some sort of anti-phasing technology…maybe even a general power inhibitor."

Kurt's fur bristled at the mention of a power inhibitor, they had most often been used as a weapon against his people. This time however that was something he would welcome.

 _Coloussus' room…_

The titanic metal man sat in the corner of the room. He had sat there for the better part of a week not eating, not sleeping. In Colossus' metallic form he didn't need to do any of these things. He did them through habit and because they relaxed him but he was perfectly able of surviving without them.

He sat silently and rolled over the events and situations of the past month in his head. He blamed himself for all of this. His Katya had survived phased inside his body for the entire journey from Westchester to here. He had brought her into these people's lives. He had led to the entire downfall of the life they had set up.

He ran his fingers in circles around one another and thought of her. Even now he couldn't help but love her. This is why it tormented him so much when she came to see him.

She sat in the opposite corner of the room mirroring him. He face was broken and torn, chunks of flesh hung from around her mouth exposing her teeth and jaws. One of her eyes was bloodshot and the iris torn, a gash in her forehead left a small flap of skin dangling down.

"Piotr," she began as she always did. A loving and caring tone in her voice. Like the same girl he had loved and who had spent many summer days sitting in the fields around their school "Why do you ignore me like this. It hurts that you won't talk."

Piotr continued to stare through her with his white eyes. "You are not you anymore, Katya…what you have become is an aberration to the girl I loved."

"It's still me," Kitty shook her head and turned it away as if to hide her tears but not tears came. Her ducts having dried up months ago. "I still remember everything, every glance when we first met, every dream I had about our future, every kiss, our first time….everything. It still means the world to me."

"A footprint is not a foot Katya," Colossus shook his head. "You are no longer who you were or what you were. You have changed."

"I've mutated Piotr, that much is clear. I've become something different but that's what we are. What we've always been. The same things you're saying now is what humans said about mutants. Something new which they were scared was going to replace them."

Piotr closed his eyes. Some of what she was saying made sense. "The shoe is just on the other foot now. You can be like the humans were about us or you can evolve, become something new…something which I won't deny can be scary, is changing the world…but not necessarily for the worse."

"I cannot listen to you Katya," he put his hands over his metal ears but they did little to drown out the sound. He could feel her words reverberate through his form.

"All you have to do is switch back to flesh," she stood to her feet and walked across the air towards him. "You've already been bitten, transform back to flesh and let the change happen. It won't be scary. I'll be here with you."

Piotr turned his head.

 _Quicksilver's cell…_

Pietro Maximoff had been sitting in the dark for the better part of three weeks. Emergency lighting didn't come on in the solitary confinement cells within the base. He knew what was going on thanks to infrequent visits from Nightcrawler.

" _Sastimos_ ," he said into the darkness as he heard a _'Bamf'_ and the smell of sulphur wafted to his nose. It was a Romany greeting. Pietro and Kurt had both grown up in gypsy families and knew the tongue of the people well.

" _Sastimos_ ," Kurt replied. He was just a voice in the darkness to Pietro with his mutation making him invisible even to the eyes of the mutant who were getting used to the dark.

"Not so much as you can see," Pietro motioned to his frail body. He was starving, his heightened metabolism needing much more food than the average person. The food that Kurt was managing to bring from the stores was barely enough for the average person, they were all feeling the effects, Quicksilver much more.

"I am sorry, _Mein Freund_ ," Kurt nodded as he rolled food through the bars of the cell. "I will make sure I bring more food every day. Times are hard with the outbreak."

"Let me out, Kurt," Quicksilver didn't bother moving from or change the fact that he was staring right at the floor at his feet. He needed to conserve as much energy as he could. "Do you know what time in a black jail cell is like for me? You're an ethical man, a man of god I know and I don't think he would appreciate the torture I'm being put through. An eternity of suffering…you know who is supposed to be in charge of such behaviour."

"I will talk to Tony about releasing you. I do not agree with what he did but I could see the reasons…"

"What would you do if someone had killed a woman you loved? Then tried to cripple you?"

"No one killed Crystal," Kurt said as he hung his head.

"They did…Tony Stark did by negligence, Clint Barton did by sneaking around with her and risking her life." Quicksilver seethed and spat.

"Pietro, it is talk like that which is dangerous. We all understand that you loved her and are mourning, but…"

"Enough platitudes," Quicksilver cut in. He appeared directly in front of Kurt's face through the bars slamming hard into them. "You have the power to free me, to save me…if you leave me here then my death is on your head. You will be a killer and we both know what the good book says will happen."

 _Later…_

Kurt moved through the darkness once more. He was sticking to the ceiling crawling forward even though, because of, it being slower than if he were on the ground. He could take in everything at a more subdued pace which gave him more opportunity to react as the situation needed.

Today like many of the recent ones had been a stressful day filled with pain, problems, fear and moral ambiguity. All things which Kurt wished he could have left behind him when he found this community but alas now he found himself the main source of action for the entire group.

He was so deep in through that he had crawled right up to the corner of a corridor T section before realising that he could hear familiar noises. There was a grunting growl reverberating in Nightcrawler's ears. He paused momentarily whilst he prepped to draw his blade as needed and continued to crawl forward with his remaining hand and feet.

There were zombies in the corridor, three of them. They were however not the main cause of concern for him at the moment. They were pinned to the floor each by one of the strong limbs of Venom.

He moved his head from side to side sniffing at the heads, their jaws snapping at his face. He singled on one and opened his jaw wide before in one motion tearing it's face clean off. It's tongue licked through the brains left in the back of the creatures head and drew them into it's mouth.

It did the same with the following two in quick succession. "I can see, hear and smell you sulfur man," said Venom in it's low double voiced growl before it turned its vision to the ceiling.

He squat, mirroring the pose which Nightcrawler himself had though his form and physique cut a very different shape. "I wonder how overrun this place would be if not for us. I need to thank you for several meals over the past week…though they were cold and not as exciting as the live ones." His long tongue licked his lips and then his whole face.

"They feed the hunger, but don't taste right," Venom said as it grimaced almost like he had a bad taste in the back of his throat.

Kurt crouched quietly. He wanted to tell this vile beast that he was a monster and that he would be judged in the end but he chose discretion and instead just sat and watched. Let him talk. He kept one hand on his blade still.

"I know where everyone is in this base," he said with some jubilation. "Where the zombies are, where the humans are and where the heroes are. I can smell them, I can hear them….I can sense them thanks to a gift from Peter Parker. Since there is no one to stop me I might pay some of them a visit when I get bored with the same taste pallet."

Kurt leaped forward, hand not drawing his blade. Venom moved to intercept ' _Bamf'._ Venom twisted to meet Nightcrawler in his new position a split second after he appeared. _'Bamf'_ Venom slammed into the wall carried by his own momentum and stuck there. 'Bamf' Kurt delivered one kick to the creatures head before _'Bamf'_.

Venom roared in anger as he leapt into the air to catch where Nightcrawler had just been. _Bamf._ Kurt was on his back and pushed down with as much force as both legs could muster. He felt tendrils twisting around his feet almost instantly. _Bamf._

Venom collided with the floor managing at the last second to get his hands before him. His mouth open showing his rows of teeth and his long flicking tongue.

Nightcrawler's blade pressed into the back of his throat. Kurt was crouched low to the floor holding the sword over his own shoulder for leverage. "You move and I don't think even you are quick enough." He spoke calmly as his eyes moved to glare into Venom's. "I will have you going after none of the people on this base. They may have tolerated you this far for some unknown reason but I can see there isn't an ounce of good in you. I am usually a good judge of character and I feel no confliction in dispatching you like the hell spawn that you are." His voice was ice.

Venom pushed backwards away from Nightcrawler. He pushed his sword forward not giving him an inch to manoeuvre until he was sure the creature was retreating. Venom growled as he did so. He slowly slid one step back at a time.

His growl slowly turned into a throaty chortle and then a full-fledged laugh as it turned and began to bound down the corridor away from the X-Man.

Kurt's fur suddenly stood on edge as ice raced through his veins. He felt a cold hand brush his face as another arm pressed across his chest and a familiar voice spoke into his ear. "All this time Kurt, I'd never have thought you had that in you."

Kitty yanked him backwards through the wall.

 _To Be continued…._


End file.
